12/12/2010
By GARY DEMUTH | Salina Journal

In one sense, ornaments are objects we hang on Christmas trees to make them look festive for the holidays. But for many individuals and families, there is one Christmas ornament that gives special meaning to the season, whether it's a remembrance of parents or grandparents or a reminder of a magical time in childhood.

The Journal asked its readers for stories behind their special holiday ornaments. Here are some of the responses:

Bear of an ornament

My name is Kylie Roberts. I am a sixth-grader at South Middle School, and my bear ornaments are special to me. Linda Staven, my baton coach, hand-makes stuffed bear ornaments for us each year. The bears wear different costumes that match costumes worn by us to perform that year, and they always have a baton in hand. I now have five bears and can't wait to see what my bear will wear this year.

âóèKYLIE ROBERTS(daughter of Rick and Tammy Roberts) Salina

Return of the star

I moved to Salina on June 4, 1969, from Marquette. Fresh out of high school, I came to Salina to attend Brown-Mackie College. Being from a small community where everyone knew each other, I was miserable being out of my element. The first Christmas I was living here, my parents gave me a small, inexpensive silver star to put on my Christmas tree. Every year until 1983 that star adorned the top of our tree.

My family and I had moved the summer of 1983 into a larger home in Salina, and when it was time to decorate the tree for Christmas, I couldn't locate the star. I was heartbroken, since my parents had given me that ornament.

In 2008, while looking through some Christmas decorations that we hadn't used for a while, lo and behold, there was my star! You cannot begin to imagine the joy in my heart in finding that star. It is once again proudly displayed at the top of our tree and has even more meaning to me today. My dad passed away Dec. 1, 2009. In having the star, it is like having a piece of him still with us.

âóèPAM YOUNG MICHEL Salina

Shingle from the porch

Every year, as one of our Christmas gifts from our grandmother, we would get an ornament. As a kid, it wasn't the most exciting gift we received and, in fact, it was usually received with the least amount of fanfare of any of the gifts we opened. However, in 2006, when we got our envelope and opened it up, it brought with it a history of our family that is truly special.

The ornament was a shingle from the porch from the house built on the family farm in 1910 and remodeled that year. My grandparents have passed away and Christmas Eves aren't spend in Flush, Kan., every year, but memories of those nights do live on in our own house as we put up our tree every year. It has a picture of the farm house where we spent every Christmas Eve as a family packed in the back room of the house and a note that reads "This is where your story begins." I love how it continues every year.

âóèBRANDON EBERT

Salina

Our Telephone Lineman

All the ornaments on our Christmas tree have a "memory." Our Telephone Lineman ornament has special meaning for the Finan family.

My father in-law, Art Finan, was a telegraph operator in World War II. My sister-in-law, Jeanne Finan, was a telephone operator for 35 years. My husband, Charlie Finan, was a lineman and switchman with Southwestern Bell for 42 years. Our son, Jerry J. Finan, just retired after 32 years with AT& T. He started part time while at Marymount, moved on as an installer and finished in supervision. Two nieces also have worked for the phone company.

This ornament has hung on our tree since 1991. We found it in a shop in Port Jefferson, N.Y.

âóè CAROLE FINAN

Salina

Lid of the tin can

My special ornament that adorns our tree every year is what I made in Girl Scouts over 50 years ago. The ornament is made from a lid of a tin can that was cut and folded to resemble a bell. It was spray-painted black and sprinkled with glitter and has yarn for the hanger. The bell is bent out of shape, and the paint and glitter are wearing off, but I still hang it on the tree every year. When I see the bell, I remember Girl Scout leaders Mildred Morgan and Irene Fisk and the other Scouts, and the fun we shared many years ago in Osborne, Kan.

âóè BECKY COUP

Salina

Homemade angel

My husband and I spent our first married Christmas in Pensacola, Fla., where he was stationed as a musician in the U.S. Navy. We had very little money that first Christmas and could not afford to buy an angel for our small Christmas tree, so we went to the local 5 & dime store and bought a 10 cent doll. We took it home and made a dress for it out of a scrap of material with tinsel trim around the skirt and wings of cardboard covered in Reynolds wrap. A halo covered in tinsel was positioned over her head with a toothpick and attached to her back with Scotch tape. That was 47 years ago, and that same angel has graced all our trees, small and large, every year since then.

âóè JENNY AND LARRY WATTS

Salina

The grandma ornaments

Since my husband Travis' first Christmas, he has received a special ornament every year from his grandparents, Gayle and Jim Francis. Jim cuts out the wooden ornament, and Gayle shows off her amazing painting skills. Our tree is decorated and filled with memories of my husband's childhood. The ornaments usually depict a Precious Moments character or cartoon character: A boy kicking his first field goal, a graduate holding his diploma, a boy decorated in patriotic clothes praying on bended knee. Each ornament is a reminder of special memories of Travis' childhood. The tradition has continued as our own daughters hang their "Grandma Gayle" ornaments on our tree.

-- Kat Wighs Shaft

Bennington

Just what I needed

Thirty-five years ago, when I was a second-grader at Beloit Elementary School, I was scheduled to come to Salina for routine surgery. I don't recall telling anyone that I was scared but my teacher, Mrs. Barbara Cooter, must have known. The day before I left for Salina with my mom, Mrs. Cooter gave me a brown grocery bag with several little Christmas presents and one large one. She said that while waiting to go to surgery, I could open one gift an hour to help pass the time and keep my mind off of things. When surgery was over, I could open the big one as a reward for being so brave.

It was just what I needed. I was too excited to see what the big one was to be scared about surgery. The big gift turned out to be an advent calendar that Mrs. Cooter had made herself. It had a large green felt Christmas tree on it and 24 numbered pockets. Each one of the pockets had a felt ornament in it. Starting Dec. 1, I could pull an ornament out of a pocket each day to count down to Christmas.

Every year growing up, that calendar hung on the coat closet door of our living room, and my brother, sister and I would count down the days to Christmas. When I went off to college, it went with me. When I bought my first house, it hung in the living room. After I married and we had two beautiful girls, it was soon obvious that counting the days with that calendar was as exciting for them as it had been for me all of those years.

The calendar now has several moth holes, but I still have all the ornaments. A couple of years ago, I wrote Mrs. Cooter a Christmas card for the first time and finally told her thank you for taking time for a scared little second-grader. I told her how her legacy has passed on to my girls, and how the calendar is a very special part of our Christmas every year and always hangs on our coat closet door.

âóèKIM COOPER

Salina

The lone survivor

I have a clear blue glass ornament with yellow, white and pink stripes. It was given to my parents by my dad's parents in the 1950s. My mom gave it to me many years ago. I will eventually pass it on to my daughter. My son doesn't want it -- he's afraid he will break it. I always place it at the top front of the tree. It is very special for me to have now that my grandparents and parents have passed away. It is one of the things that reminds me that they are still with me, and it must be the only ornament that has survived in this family.

-- Marilyn Gittinger

Goodland

Noel, the Christmas Spider

We have had a very unique ornament on every one of our Christmas trees for the last 30 years. It is a large, black rubber spider named Noel.

We were living in Salina at the time. Our oldest son, Kent, was 19 months old, and his little brother Caleb was just a few days old. To keep Kent busy while the baby was sleeping, I let him help me decorate the Christmas tree. When we opened the box of ornaments, a rubber spider from the Halloween ornaments had gotten into the box by accident the year before. When I took the lid off, the spider kind of "popped" out and scared Kent half to death.

In a sudden moment of "genius," I told him that it was Noel the Christmas Spider and we were going to put her on the tree. Noel has been on every Christmas tree since then, and I have even given Kent a Noel for his own daughters to have on their tree there in Salina.

-- Kim Zeigler

Lexington, Neb.

The unintended 'donation'

When I was a child, we lived in Connecticut (where my dad immigrated to from Germany). We had many beautiful ornaments that had been in his family (and my mom's, who also was of German descent). I remember specifically the tiny houses with shimmery isinglass windows and a beautiful hand-blown glass chandelier (it was pink!).

One year, a few months before Christmas, my mom and I had gone shopping. She left instructions for my older brother to let the Salvation Army collection people take the boxes that were piled on the other side of the furnace, which he did.

It was not until that Christmas, as we were setting up the tree, we could not find the special ornaments! We searched in vain while my mom tried to figure out what could have become of them. It finally dawned on us what must have happened -- someone, somewhere, had received some very special decorations that year from the Salvation Army!

-- Trudy Mathews

Salina

Kindergarten bell

Thanks to my dear, deceased mother-in-law, we have the tree ornament my husband made when he was in kindergarten -- December, 1941. It is a papier mache bell, painted red (slightly faded). The clapper is string with a ball of clay on the end, and it hangs about 2 inches below the bell. Too cute.

This bell has been carefully preserved for 69 years and is the favorite tree decoration of our whole family. It is always hung in the most prominent place on the tree.

-- Ron and Peggy Johnson

Lindsborg

A gift for myself

As a child, I would purchase my parents presents that I really liked myself. One year, some 60-plus years ago, I bought them a box of ornaments that I really loved. I think there were only six in the box. They were glass and were concave on one side with a little plastic scene. One was of Santa in his sleigh being pulled by a single reindeer, which lasted many, many years. The only one still surviving is the one with the little nativity scene inside. My parents are both deceased now, so I now possess the "special ornament."

-- Venita Cole

Stockton

The handmade manger

My wife Anne's favorite Christmas ornament is a manger handmade by her father. During World War II in Luxembourg, where my wife was born and raised, she was told by her parents that everything was scarce. Her father would go out and buy anything for the family to eat. It was during one of those trips that he found some ammunition boxes along the road. He brought them home and started crafting the manger, which has been with us since we were married. It's the first decoration that goes under the tree, and the last one to be taken down.

-- Ben Munoz

Salina

A treasured egg

Nancy Blackburn of Columbus, Neb., was given a Christmas ornament in 1960 by her first Sunday school teacher, the late Gladys Smies of Courtland. Nancy was a member of the preschool class, which met in the furnace room in the basement of Courtland United Methodist Church. The room was warm, so the smallest children used that area. Gladys, a talented artist, had blown the insides from a hen egg, painted it powder blue and glued tiny sequins around the opening. The inside contains a miniature nativity scene, with little figures cut from a Christmas card, and a tiny star-shaped sequin hanging from the "roof." Nancy has always hung this ornament front and center on her Christmas tree, and it has even survived when a large, heavy, live tree fell face down several years ago. Nancy knew she would probably find the delicate little egg crushed but was happy to find it had survived in good shape. It spends the rest of the year in an old Melmac cup, nestled in tissue paper. Nancy will be hanging it front and center again this year, for the 51st time!

-- Judy Blackburn

Courtland

Every one full of love

I do not have one particular ornament, but I think I have a rather unique collection of ornaments. I have been teaching preschool for 40 years in Salina, and almost all the ornaments on my tree (and it is loaded!) are gifts from the children I have taught. Some have their pictures on them, and some of those children are now lawyers, doctors, dentists and teachers. These are not fancy or famous or expensive, but every one is full of love and I treasure each and every one of them.

-- Marilyn Ericson

Salina

A cardboard reindeer

When my grandson Kyle was in kindergarten, they were given play money to buy little Christmas toys. He bought me an 8-inch-long reindeer made out of thin cardboard. It is bright with gold bells and holly on it. Every time I look at it I think of him and how excited he was when he handed it to me. He told me he bought it for me.

Now every time I look at it I get a little teary eyed because he got older so fast. He is now a college graduate and planning to be married next summer. It is my favorite tree ornament, and I have put it on our tree every year since.

-- Grandma Carla Christians

Lindsborg

nReporter Gary Demuth can be reached at 822-1405 or by e-mail at gdemuth@salina.com.

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